We're creating warlords who will take us down path of ignominy

President Uhuru Kenyatta is playing truant. Whether it is a ruse to revamp his waning popularity through the application of the law of scarcity, or whether he is stressed by carrying the burdens of 45 plus million ingrates remains to be seen.

However, it seems like he has lost control of the country. He knows it, but seems not to care. MPs hitherto unfit to even tie his shoe laces defy and talk back at him. To his detriment as pressure on him mounts, he has found solace in rewarding loyalists from his ethnic backyard.
The speedy gazettement of Justice Macharia Njeru’s appointment to the Judicial Service Commission where others have taken months and court orders to gazette, raised eyebrows. In a tweet, lawyer Ahmednasir Abdullahi pointed this out and alluded to George Orwell’s play ‘Animal Farm’ where select animals are more equal than others.

Thirteen diplomats out of the 18 nominated by President Kenyatta last week come from one ethnic community. Why the erudite president would do this despite his pledge to share the national cake equitably among the 45 communities of Kenya is anybody’s guess.

Whenever Deputy President William Ruto and his troupe of loyalists, especially from Central Kenya, openly disregard Kenyatta’s directive on premature campaigns in the buildup to the 2022 elections, they help in contextualising the lame duck situation President Kenyatta finds himself in. Yet even as his support base in the Rift Valley wanes, Ruto appears to have a stranglehold on political greenhorns from Central Kenya. The motivation is clear; money over principles and patriotism.

Blood money

American writer Suzy Kassem contends that: “To act without a conscience, but for a paycheck, makes anyone a dangerous animal. The devil would be powerless if he couldn’t entice people to do his work. So as long as money continues to seduce the hungry, the hopeless, the broken, the greedy, and the needy, there will always be war between brothers”.

And Kenyans are in the midst of a war, albeit a silent one so far. The endless quantities of money that have found their way into churches where the hungry, poor and hopeless congregate to find solace, have elicited national debate on morality and blood money. The debate has divided the church down the middle. On the one side are those whose conscience troubles them; while on the other are the contemporary Judas Iscariots. They are willing to desecrate the church for the reward of a few million shillings donated to their churches by leaders of dubious repute.

To me, the “Tangatanga” team greenhorns are mendicants exploiting a situation that has presented itself to make money. They live in hell yet promise to deliver heaven to the heavenly investors who believe doing so in silver and gold will earn them God’s favour. The “Kieleweke” team, even as it casts aspersion on the “Tangatanga” squad, wallows in money that might also not be clean. Mostly from the older generation, they are in it to protect what they believe stands threatened should Kenyatta exit before installing a person favourable to them.

Supposed war

Then there is talk of another group called “Zurura-Zurura” whose motivation is not clear, being formed by some tired politicians. The emergence of these groups has done nothing but give succor to tribalism and corruption. We are creating warlords in the mould of those who led Somalia down the path of ignominy and could rue it. The supposed war on corruption has fizzled out, not because there is no evidence, but because both camps have dirt on each other and nobody is sure they can win the fight if it breaks out openly. The “Tangatanga” team, while opposing any corruption probe that threatened to unearth the truth, made that abundantly clear. Let us not be deluded; the State, and to an extent the Judiciary, will always protect our tormentors because they are cogs in the system.

By now it is clear that despite the much-touted March 9, 2018 handshake and the attendant bluff about building bridges, the government does not care about public good. Those indicted for crime enjoy deep state connections and will continue to escape retribution while we wait for investigations that never get concluded. It is the reason the corrupt have nothing to fear and continue to steal using the fail-proof accounting system IFMIS the Government put in place at great cost.

What we are witnessing is blatant abuse of power by people we donated power to. They have used that power to rob us, yet in our ignorance and poverty that the State does little to alleviate, the indigent continue to praise leaders whenever they give them crumbs from the national loaf they stole. Parliamentarians are busy lining their pockets with money that should ideally be put to use raising the living standards of people.